A modified spondee threshold procedure

Since Martin and Sides (Asha, 1985, 27, 29-36) found that only 6% of audiologists reported actually following current ASHA guidelines for SRT testing (Asha, 1979, 21, 353-356), a comparison was made on 36 normal-hearing adults of spondee thresholds (ST) collected following strictly those guidelines (ST1) and by an experimental procedure based on the ASHA guidelines for pure-tone audiometry (Asha, 1978, 20, 297-301) (ST2). A 3-frequency pure-tone average (PTA) was also collected. Since mean HTLs differed by less than or equal to 5 db among ST1, ST2, and PTA, both ST procedures appear equally valid and interchangeable, but ST2 was considerably more efficient, requiring less time (mean savings of 139 sec/ear) and fewer word presentations (mean savings of 15 words/ear). The ST2 procedure may have clinical use with no significant compromise in validity.